Eyes on the Rise

Eyes on the Rise is a project of the Sea Level Rise: South Florida initiative, which is largely funded by aChallenge Fund for Innovation in Journalism Educationgrant. The grant was awarded in Spring 2014 to Robert E. Gutsche, Jr., Kate MacMillin, Susan Jacobson, and Juliet Pinto. Eyes on the Rise aims to raise awareness and educate South Florida communities about the impact, challenges and threats of sea level rise, to create solutions for a sustainable future.

Sea Level Rise Toolbox

The Sea Level Rise Toolbox is part of Eyes on the Rise, a project of Florida International University School of Communication and Journalism professors Susan Jacobson, Robert “Ted” Gutsche, Kate MacMillin and Juliet Pinto, FIU LIbrary GIS Center and their students.

The goal of the Sea Level Rise Toolbox is to inform citizens of South Florida about the potential impact of sea level rise in their neighborhoods. We want to help our fellow Floridians adapt to sea level rise and better understand what local governments, including Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County, are doing to adapt to sea level rise. To this end, FIU Journalism students have produced a video series on Sea Level Rise Impact for WPBT2, and have partnered with journalists from Fusion, whose reporting on the Miami Beach Centennial and sea-level rise adaptation efforts helps provide this context to the app.

Tools

If you ever happen to witness any “sunny day flooding” in your South Florida community, you can report it using the EyesOnTheRise Document A Flood form: Simply provide details on the date/time/location, and if possible, take a measurement of the depth of flooding using a ruler or meter stick. The more description, the better, and photos are also strongly encouraged to help verify the report! Your submissions will help contribute useful data to the EyesOnTheRise app, which allows anyone in South Florida to see how their area may be impacted by rising sea levels and related flooding. See here to learn more about the app!

The app’s main feature is an interactive sea level rise viewer where users can enter an address to visualize how up to a 6ft increase in sea level may affect their neighborhoods in the Tri-County area of South Florida.

To Find Your Location

Enter a location — an address or landmark — into the search box, or click on a location on the map itself.

To See Sea Level Rise

Click on Sea Level Rise to show your elevation and to simulate sea level rise. Slide the slider knob slowly to the right to simulate sea level rise.

Elevation Data

The elevation data is provided by Google’s elevation service. The value is interpolated from actual elevation measurements at the four nearest available locations. The horizontal resolution is the distance between these points. Please note that we use Google Elevation to show the elevation of the address entered by the user, but we do not use Google Elevation to calculate the visualization of sea-level rise (see here for more details).

As development on the Sea Level Rise Toolbox continues, it will also include a database of flood reports from both government and citizen sources in South Florida. Miami-Dade County recently launched an open data portal that includes flood reports, which will be included in the flood database. The flood report database will help residents identify the incidence of what theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calls ‘nuisance flooding,’a phenomenon that is increasingly common as coastal sea levels rise.